1965-69
The teams of this era had several individual stars but only one winning season
(1968's 8 game schedule). !965's group had high hopes and Hayden's first meeting
with prestige opponent Lawrence. This game brought a huge crowd to Hayden
Field and the game was at least competitive. The real let down was losing to
Seaman and Highland Park that eliminated Hayden from Centennial League title
contention. Hayden showed it's true talent in defeating League champion
Leavenworth in final game of the year. Bill Glenn and Steve Gibbs were
All-League performers. In 1966 the team matched the record of 1965, but blow-out
losses to Lawrence and Atchison were demoralizing. Coach Orth's final year
(1967) produced another 4-5 finish with the help of a forfeit by Highland Park.
Ron Cappocia and Tom Theis from the class of 1968 were leaders of this
squad.

The recent reunion of the Class of 1967
brought back memories, good and bad, of this football season. Our coach, Bill
Orth, became a well respected Kansas high school football coach at several other
locations in the state. He was a stubborn *** to some and a happy warrior
to others. He was set on running a fairly complicated offense that was built
around QB Dale Bennett's talents. A few days before the first game of the year,
Bennett suffered a knee injury in practice and Cecil Kohake (JR) was thrown into
the action. The team played well enough on defense to hold off Washburn.

The Seaman game exposed the lack of
offense that would punish Hayden through most of our games in 1966. Kohake tried
to execute the offense that called for play action passing but could only
connect on 2 of 17 through the air. Still, Hayden was only down 6-2 at half
time. Eventually the defense caved in the 3rd quarter when they gave up 20
points - but one of those scores was on a pass interception. It was after this
game that we lost a couple of Seniors that were demoted from their starting
positions. They could not live with that decision by Coach Orth - if I had
possesed any sense, I should have joined them. I was not a starter and it should
have been clear that Coach was not going to play Pat Macfee. But, I still
thought I might get a chance and was not ready to give up. My junior season was
washed out early by a severely separated shoulder injury and I had struggled
with the decision to even come out for football in my Senior year.

Anyway, the scheduling
miscalculation of A.D. Ken Bueltel shattered the team's confidence as we were pummeled
by Lawrence in Haskell stadium. Truthfully, we could have had Knute Rockne on
the sidelines and would still have been skinned alive in that game. Lawrence
reserves played most of the second half. At one point in the game, the Lawrence
chain gang snagged Coach Orth's foot in a loop and then flipped him up in the
air. Stifled laughter from the bench was rewarded with long and hard practices
the next week.

The team recovered their senses against
Highland Park. Coach played a variety of the roster in this game - this game was
a throw back to the games our class had played when we were Freshman and
Sophmores. Then, against Shawnee Heights, we finally got some offense going with
Greg Zeigler breaking the 100 yard mark. Dale Bennett was able to play a
little bit in the second half.

Then came the bomb. Atchison
blasted us 49-0. Our offense collected 2 first downs, 20 yards rushing, 0 yards
passing on 12 attempts. Our lack of speed on defense was exploited by Atchison's
fast backs to build a 13-0 half time lead. Our lack of offense kept our defense
out on the field for most of the second half. Coach let everybody play in this
game. In general, more of the same followed against Shawnee Mission South and
Miege-K.C.

Our final game of the year was the
team's best outing. I think everybody wanted to end with a win and celebrate
that the season was finally over. Bennett showed why Coach Orth and the team
were so optimistic in our pre-season practices. Greg Zeiglar broke a 100 yards
again and we threw Coach Orth in the shower after the game. My memory says that
he put up quite a bit of resistance and there was both love and hate involved
with the ritualistic hosing that was administered to Coach Bill Orth.

All in all, we won about as many
games as was possible that year. If we could have replaced Lawrence and Shawnee
Mission South with Topeka High and Topeka West, I think we would have posted a
6-3 record. We might have even beat Seaman if Dale Bennett had not been injured.
Coach Orth always stressed optimism in our attitude and we might have been able
to have made the score a little closer against Lawrence if we had entered that
contest 2-0. And so it goes with re-hashing the re-hash of old high school
football days.

Coach Orth regrouped after he left
Hayden. He went back to the small town football where he had great success
before coming to Hayden. He won consecutive 1A championships with Little River
and eventually moved up to coach large school programs at Winfield, Goddard and
Liberal. He made several play-off appearances with those schools. And if he had
lived long enough to come back to our reunion we would probably have been able
to work out all the differences that existed back then. If not, we would have
had to throw him in the shower again.

Leroy Brungardt took over as head
coach and squeaked out a winning season in 1968. Shawnee Mission South was
dropped from the schedule and no replacement could be found - so only 8 games
were played. The program took a step backward in 1969 before advancing with
winning records in the early 1970's.

Coach
Brungardt started his first season at Hayden by running "the old straight
T" and stressing the running game on offense. The team's defense shut out
Washburn Rural and Seaman but the offense sputtered in both games.
Lawrence finished out an agreed 4 game series against Hayden with a 55-0
blowout in Lawrence.

It was a passing game - Greg Custenborder to John Gibbs - that helped the
Wildcats come back against Highland Park. Hayden was down 20-13 when Gibbs
returned a punt to the Highland Park 25. This set-up a TD and PAT that
tied the score with 1:32 left in the game. John Artzer intercepted a pass
on the next Scotsmen possession. Then Custenborder hit Gibbs for a 45 yard
TD to win the game. The defense held off Shawnee Heights top running backs
Dan Bryant and Bill Dinkel long enough to allow Custenborder, Gibbs and Mike
Hunninghake to provide 2 TD's - John Artzer kicked a field goal to complete the
scoring.

Atchison had some powerful teams in the late 1960's. George Ross was an
extremely quick halfback and Reggie Ballew was a strong rushing fullback. They
combined for 240 yards rushing that ate up most of the clock in this one-sided
game. Hayden had the ball for only 4 plays in the last quarter. Coach
Brungardt' s initial thoughts about a strong rushing offense changed due to the
strong passing arm of Custenborder for the final two games of the season.
Custenborder targeted Hunninghake, Gibbs and Steve Huston for a total of 167
yards in the game against Miege. Some costly mistakes (fumble and an
interception) set-up 2 TDs for Miege in the first half and their steady
rushing game carried the Stags to the win. Custenborder's passing
definitely carried the Wildcats in their final game against Leavenworth. He was
14 out of 17 passing for 212 yards. Gibbs threw a half back pass to Custenborder
for another 40 yards. Other players not already mentioned that contributed this
year were Greg Meyer, Gary Lindsay, Terry McVay, Gary Hugg, Richard Lindsay,
Doug Dennis, Nick Otto, Steve Wren, Mike Dowling, Steve Glotzbach and Ken
Latshaw.

Hayden was a pre-season favorite with Highland Park to compete
for the league championship. A review of the games of this period describe a
pretty good defensive effort in most games - but a sluggish offense for most of
the season. Coach Brungardt knew that the unknown for this season was the
quarterback. He first tried Rick Meier and then Ed Clark at the position. Clark
seemed to get better at the passing game as the season wore on and at the least
gained experience for next year. Rick Meier continued to contribute on the
defensive side.

This team played all Centennial League games closely - Seaman (the
eventual champion) dominated with a 289-95 total offense advantage - but
some big plays by Hayden kept the game close. Gary Lindsay blocked a punt to set
up one TD and Shane Coughlin set the table for another with a long kick-off
return. Highland Park also dominated on the offensive side - but Hayden hung on
for several defensive stops on the wet Hayden field. Leavenworth finished
third behind Seaman and Highland Park and Hayden really thought the game was won
when Clark hit Greg Meyer for a TD with 4 minutes left in the game. Then
the defense stopped the Pioneers and Hayden had the ball with 3 minutes left. A
fumble gave the ball back to Leavenworth and , despite a game saving tackle by
Rick Meier , John Flynn finally connected with a TD pass with only 55 seconds
left. Mike Hunninghake caught 2 passes from Clark to put Hayden on Leavenworth's
21 with 11 seconds left - but John Artzer's field goal try was short. A penalty
gave Hayden another shot at the field goal that sailed right.

The best thing accomplished this season was the experience gained by Juniors and
some Sophomores that helped Coach Brungardt to have his best 2 seasons as Hayden
coach in 1970 and 1971. 1969 saw the beginning of the KSHSAA
football play-offs. The system was complicated and Hayden had several wild
finishes in the coming decade to gain entry to the post-season.